River opens a little wider as oil spill's effects spread

Patiently waiting in a 100-deep line to board buses at the Erato Street cruise terminal Saturday, Mike and Rhonda Howard of Anniston, Ala., found themselves among the latest victims of a Mississippi River oil spill that has disrupted national commerce, local drinking water supplies and summer vacation plans for thousands of cruise-goers.

Like the 100-plus ships and barges that have idled in the river since Wednesday's spill, the Howards were stranded without warning. They flew to New Orleans on Friday, only to be told they would be bused back to their home state to launch the five-day journey to the Yucatan from Mobile.

"We left Alabama to go back to Alabama," Rhonda Howard said.

Whether their ship will return to New Orleans on Thursday is largely up to the Coast Guard, which continued Saturday to slowly increase access to the 100-mile portion of the Mississippi River closed after Wednesday's early-morning collision between a tanker and a barge containing more than 400,000 gallons of a thick industrial oil.

Cleanup crews reported progress in mopping up the oil, though only about 10 percent has been collected so far and the barge continues to leak more oil.

Officials admit that some of the oil will reach environmentally sensitive areas as it travels farther south toward the marshes and waterways of the river's delta.

"Sometimes in the marsh we'll have to leave some oil because it's the best thing to do," said Roland Guidry, who heads the Louisiana oil spill coordinator's office. "If you go into the marsh and destroy the marsh, then you've lost the battle."

Wildlife conservation officials said they have received reports of 67 oil-coated birds, mostly egrets, plus two beavers and a muskrat. So far, though, crews have captured only a single dove.

"The ones that have a lot of energy are tough to catch, even if they're flightless," said Buddy Goatcher, a contaminant specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Ship traffic picks up

Fifty vessels were allowed to move inside the spill zone Saturday, up from only four Friday, and Coast Guard Capt. Lincoln Stroh said a maritime recovery unit is working with shipping industry officials to allow additional travel during the next few days.

Two cleaning stations have been set up for ships leaving the spill zone, one at New Orleans and the other near the mouth of the river. As of Saturday afternoon, three ships had been allowed to pass into the Gulf of Mexico, and another was able to leave the zone's northern end.

Another 10 ships were cleared to leave the zone once they are cleaned.

The first boat to be released north of the closed zone had to wait 12 hours to be cleaned, but Stroh said crews will become more efficient in coming days.

At the north end of the spill zone Saturday, four boats outfitted with pressure washers chipped away at chunks of oil on the Saamis Adventurer, in line to be just the second ship to venture north of New Orleans since Wednesday.

The Coast Guard on Saturday also allowed a ship to enter the contaminated section of the river from the Gulf of Mexico. The "litmus test ship" will be inspected at the Uptown station to help officials gauge how polluted the waterway really is, Stroh said.

Cleanup continues

A Coast Guard utility boat rumbled upriver Saturday morning, giving those on board a full panorama of the aftermath of Wednesday's spill.

Where the skimmers can't reach, such as the pilings below the Riverwalk, scores of multicolored "pom-poms" tied to the wharf leached up the greasy mess beneath.

The Coast Guard boat motored over to the West Bank near Gretna, where two oil supply boats marooned since Wednesday waited for permission to move north.

Heading back downriver, the Coast Guard boat skirted past the marooned barge still nestled against the Crescent City Connection.

Thick chunks of the No.¤6 fuel oil can still be seen on the river near downtown New Orleans, but most of it has dispersed into a translucent sheen that coats the surface, with much of the oil now collected in pockets along the river's banks.

'Responsible party'

American Commercial Lines, the owner of the barge, has so far fronted nearly all the cleanup costs as the "responsible party" for the accident. Ultimately, whichever boat is found liable will have to work out the expenses under a "polluter pays" system established after the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Even under that system, companies are liable for only a certain amount of damage. After that, the government can tap into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a $2.7 billion pot of money generated primarily by taxes on oil.

The tanker ship Tintomara, largely undamaged by the collision, is managed by Laurin Maritime of Houston. DRD Towing Inc. of Harvey was operating the tugboat attached to the barge, but Coast Guard records show that American Commercial Lines owns the tugboat as well as the barge that spilled the oil.

David Parker, a spokesman for American Commercial, said Saturday that any comment on liability would be "speculative" until the Coast Guard completes its investigation.

He said there is no estimate for the cost of a full cleanup. "Our insurance carriers have allowed us to continue with this," he said.

The average cleanup cost for a spill involving a comparable tanker barge is about $23 million, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year in the wake of an oil spill in San Francisco Bay.

All of the operators aboard the tugboat lacked proper licenses, but the Coast Guard has released few other details about its investigation into the collision. Stroh said the Coast Guard will release audio footage in the next few days that will shed light on what happened.

Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3786.